New to AA? Got questions? Here's the place to ask. Note that no one person speaks "officially" for AA. AA meetings in your local area are always the best source of information. Note that anyone may post and reply to messages in this forum.

Make up excuses to drinkUse any old excuse to drinkNeed it to feel normalNeed it to functionIt takes priority over everything elseWould rather die than go withoutJust call me Cleopatra, man, 'cause I'm the queen of denial!!!

16 months and counting. Glad I'm not Cleopatra anymore. I fancy myself as more of a Marilyn Monroe now.

I would suggest that you contact a Rehab or Detox, they can probably tell you many more than just 7 symptoms of Addiction.

However, THIS site is Alcoholics Anonymous and what we alcoholics have is a 3 fold illness...Mental, Physical, and Spiritual.

Mental.....I had an obsession of the mind (a thought that overcomes all other thoughts) that insured that I would take the first drink.

Physical.....Once I put one drink of alcohol into my body, it set up a physical compulsion for MORE, and I would continue to drink against my will, until I was drunk, sick and out of control again.

Spiritual..... I was brought up with pretty good values that I had been taught from a very early age. When I crossed that invisible line into alcoholism I just kept moving my own values down, thinking things, saying things, and doing things that I never ever thought I was capable of, until my own value system became unrecognizable even to myself, and I would do whatever I needed to do.....just to get a drink, because I had lost the ability to choose to NOT drink.